A packet of seeds ...

... Sprinkled by my son over a thin strip of earth in the spring - and they're lovely.

Mid-summer hydrangea

Ceanothus

Some sort of late-summer, robust but fluffy ceanothus.

Mini Angels' Fishing-rods

Late July

The most vivid splash of colour - even on a dull day

Nature, having a laugh

I buy a pot, buy a bonny lavender plant and plant it. I water it and watch as it sulks - grey and lack-lustre. Then lo' - some lavender self-seeds in an invisible crevice in a stone wall. And look at it!

Erigeron

I don't know if that's how you spell it - but something like that, anyway.

Hollyhock

My first ever hollyhock. My other attempts have gone rusty and died.

The exception to the rose rule

This rose likes my garden, and I like it.
I couldn't decide which picture - so put up both.

Just beginning

... to come into flower. Hydranger.

Late June

The first Agapanthus bloom.

Big and blowsy

This makes me think of over-blown 18th-Century Still Life painting.

Uninvited ...

... but very welcome. Yellow poppies.

Roses don't ...

... really like my garden. But this is a lovely colour, if not a lovely photo.

More from mid June

Something black and lacy.

Mid June

Not a flower at all but grass, 'nodding grass'. Too pretty to dig up.

Early June 09

I know this is called a 'gaura' because when my last one died - in the hard late frosts of last Winter - I was determined to track another one down. Lovely foliage, it grows fast and flowers from Spring to Autumn. What's not to like?

Early June 09

This is one of several plants of this family - know the name but can't remember it just now. It came from a car-boot sale. Lovely varied foliage and the flowers are a bonus

Early June 09

I don't know what its name is. But I love it because it's like a firework exploding.